


Tessellation

by lonelylittlelights



Series: States of Matter [2]
Category: Chicago PD (TV)
Genre: Ace!Mouse, F/M, M/M, PTSD, Poly, Relationship Negotiation, Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:22:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22577017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelylittlelights/pseuds/lonelylittlelights
Summary: It had been seven months since Mouse had shocked her into silence in the district parking lot. Six since Terry had died and Jay had fallen apart. Five since Erin had found the courage to ask Jay the question that had been slowly building up inside her. Five months since everything and nothing had changed.
Relationships: Greg "Mouse" Gerwitz/Jay Halstead/Erin Lindsay
Series: States of Matter [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624471
Comments: 16
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

It had been seven months since Mouse had shocked her into silence in the district parking lot. Six since Terry had died and Jay had fallen apart. Five since Erin had found the courage to ask Jay the question that had been slowly building up inside her. Five months since everything and nothing had changed.

Jay had woken up the morning after Terry’s funeral disoriented, and a little bewildered at having both Erin and Mouse in his bed. Erin was amazed, and she could tell Mouse was too, that Jay hadn’t woken once in the night, and imagined that he must have just been too exhausted from the stress and the grief and the two sleepless nights before. They sent Jay off for a shower and started making breakfast, and by the time the food was gone Jay was back to claiming that he was fine. Erin didn’t buy it for a second, and she traded disbelieving glances with Mouse.

When they found out that Voight had put Jay on a mandatory one week leave, they shared grateful sighs, and then Erin called Voight and authoritatively told him that she and Mouse were using a week of their vacation days. When she hung up, doubt hit her immediately and she bit her lip as she looked at Mouse, afraid she was out of line speaking for him like that. Mouse met her with a grateful, if surprised, smile, and Jay scowled and told them they were being ridiculous. He said that he was fine.

He said it every day that week, even though she and Mouse knew better than to ask. They cooked and watched Doctor Who and played Settlers of Catan, and Jay got progressively more snippy with them and aggressive with strangers. Erin sighed when Mouse told her this was par for the course, that this was an improvement. Finally, five days in, Jay exploded.

“I said I’m fine! I’m not a fucking child, so get the hell out, both of you!”

Mouse was used to this, and Erin was resolute, so they didn’t move.

“Jay, you’re not fine,” Mouse said matter of factly.

“Just talk to us,” Erin pleaded, still desperate to do more.

Jay didn’t talk to them; he yelled some more and they tried to stay calm but eventually Erin was stinging with desperation and indignation and she started yelling back, and Mouse was telling Jay to stop it and Jay picked up an empty glass from the coffee table and threw it. It hit the wall and shattered, a spray of glittering shards and a crash of clear sound. Everything froze. Erin stared at Jay, could feel Mouse’s stillness beside her. Jay’s eyes were wide with growing horror. He stumbled back a step, and Erin heard his breath go ragged, one of his hands coming up to cover parted lips. A strangled moan made its way from Jay’s mouth, and it broke Erin and Mouse into motion.

They moved towards Jay in concert, and Jay took another step back and fell into the couch behind him. His hands came up to hold his head, hunched over, breathing ragged, and for a moment Erin thought maybe he was having a panic attack like Mouse had had. She and Mouse sat beside Jay on either side and she decided that, no, it wasn’t a panic attack. It was a mix of shock and anger and trying not to cry. Erin put a hand on Jay’s back and he froze, but she rubbed soothing circles until he relaxed some.

“Jay,” Mouse tried again, voice low and soothing. “You need to talk to someone.”

“A therapist if not us,” Erin added. Jay snorted humourlessly, and Erin understood the implied “this coming from you?” and frowned at Mouse over Jay’s back. Her mouth spoke without her permission. “We will if you will.”

In the moment before Jay’s head came up to look at her in disbelief, Erin watched emotions cycle across Mouse’s face: surprise, distaste, consideration, resignation. Jay’s head came up, and Erin looked back at him earnestly, and his eyebrows knit together. He turned to Mouse, no doubt expecting a denial, but Mouse met him with a nod.

It took a lot more convincing. Several days’ worth of convincing, and promises that if he went they’d stop treating him like glass, stop asking if he was okay, stop being weird about it. She tried to apologize to Mouse about speaking for both of them again, tried to apologize acrobatically without coming out and saying “I’m sorry” because she hadn’t forgotten the way those words coming out of her mouth through a telephone had once paralyzed and choked him. Mouse had shrugged and said, “If it works… Besides, maybe… well, maybe it’s not a bad thing.” Erin thought of the night they sat in the kitchen with their tea and she told Mouse he could talk to her, thought of the agonized expression when he said “I can’t” with a weight that Erin was sure she didn’t fully understand, thought of their shared midnights before those three words slipped from his lips, thought of the sudden silence on the other end of the phone and thought, _yes, maybe it’s not a bad thing_.

Finally, they got a grudging agreement from Jay; if he went to a therapist, and actually gave it a shot, Erin and Mouse would too. Erin decided that she would go back to Dr. Charles, who already had some background in terms of her sordid history. She had also asked him for a recommendation for a good therapist who specialized in veterans and PTSD for Mouse and Jay after checking to make sure it wasn’t some kind of conflict of interest for them both to see the same therapist.

Jay had his first appointment on a Tuesday. Erin and Mouse went to Jay’s apartment and started on an involved Indian dish, and Jay came home tense and silent, but with another appointment scheduled. Mouse had his first appointment on Thursday and Erin was glad she had extracted a promise from him that he would come to Jay’s after because when he arrived he was pale and quiet and his fingers fidgeted with his NA coin all night. Erin spent most of her first appointment with Dr. Charles hashing out her anger and exasperation and fear for Jay after Terry and his refusal to talk.

After that, things were surprisingly normal. Except for the new addition to their schedules of therapy sessions – for now, once weekly for Erin, twice weekly for Jay and Mouse, which she was shocked they had agreed to – things were almost like they had been before Mouse had said those words to her. Before she knew he loved her.

There were nights of food and laughter, leftovers shared around the lunch table, the rapidly dwindling stock of Doctor Who episodes. There were also nightmares, and midnight discussions to the flickering light of a documentary. There were nights where Mouse stayed, nights where he didn’t, and nights where maybe he should have.

The difference was that now sometimes her gaze would linger on him, picking out the line of his cheekbones and wondering what it would be like to brush her fingers along them. She watched Jay watch Mouse with tender affection, felt the warmth in her chest when she watched them both. Sometimes she imagined pulling him away from the couch and the three of them nestled together in Jay’s bed. Sometimes she looked at his lips and prodded her mind and waited for something else, the kind of thing she saw sometimes when she looked at Jay’s lips. She didn’t see it. But she still saw their fingers laced together, a chaste kiss, mornings resting her head on his shoulder watching him scramble eggs while Jay made the coffee. She saw it in the curve of his eyebrow, in his smile, in the way that he looked at Jay. She saw it, and she _wanted,_ wanted with an ache that caught her off guard, wanted in silence, afraid and guilty, wanted and wanted and wanted.


	2. Chapter 2

She kept her silence for a month, letting the comfortable joy of being them, being with them, sink back in. Jay told her that he loved her, and she felt happiness welling up inside her and she told him that she loved him and meant it, unequivocally. Later, old insecurities crept in, and she hugged Jay and smiled at Mouse, and Jay pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She kept talking to Dr. Charles. Kept loving Jay, kept wanting Mouse, wanting them both, wanting to be the three of them more than just one plus one plus one.

She kept her silence, afraid to hope, afraid to break this fragile thing they had only just repaired. She didn’t say anything to Dr. Charles, because loving two people at once, wanting to be with them both, well it wasn’t exactly par for the course was it? But he noticed that something was weighing on her mind. That was his job. His job was also to listen without judgement to anything and everything she had to say and to help her deal with it in a healthy way, of which he reminded her patiently at the beginning of one of their sessions. Erin stared at him, biting her lip, and he stared calmly back in that serene way of his.

“Mouse told me he loves me,” she blurted out finally. Dr. Charles’ eyebrows twitched just enough to tell her that she’d caught him off guard.

“Hmm,” he hummed, waiting for her to elaborate.

“I don’t think he meant to tell me, he was angry that I’d gone after Yates alone and I think it just sort of slipped out. And at first I couldn’t really even believe it, and he was acting really weird about it and things were awkward so I tried to just forget about it but then the shooting happened and we needed to be there for Jay and things went back to normal, but I can’t help seeing Mouse differently now and I think… I think I might love him too, but it’s really confusing.” She huffed, shaking her head and pinching the bridge of her nose.

“So, to clarify, you’re with Jay, but you have feelings for Mouse, and Mouse has feelings for you?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Erin interjected, anxiety spiking that Dr. Charles might get the wrong idea about her feelings for Jay. “I love Jay, I’m in love with Jay. And, and Mouse is ace, and he’s loved Jay for years, he told me ages ago, and I think maybe Jay feels the same but for some reason they never… and then Mouse said he loves me, and it’s a mess but I just, I want– I think about the future and it’s the three of us.” Erin threw up her hands and looked away, face burning with a fierce blush waiting for a disbelieving condemnation that she should know better than to expect.

“Alright. Are you familiar with the term polyamory, Erin?”

Erin peeked at Dr. Charles who was watching her earnestly and intently.

“No? Is it like polygamy?”

Dr. Charles tilted his head slightly.

“In a manner of speaking. Polygamy is when a man has sexual and or romantic relationships with multiple women but polyamory more broadly refers to having more than one sexual or romantic relationship at one time with the knowing consent of all those involved. Now sometimes that means a man or a woman has multiple relationships without any attachments between their partners, but other times it can be three or more people who are all in a relationship together. It sounds to me like that’s what you’re looking for with Mouse and Jay, would that be right?”

Erin blinked, considering.

“I- I guess so… is that really a thing that people do?”

“Certainly. It’s not terribly common, but it is more common than it used to be, and from what I understand, when done right with proper consent and respect it can be wonderfully rewarding.”

“Huh.”

“So the question becomes then, if you love Mouse and Jay, Mouse loves you and Jay, Jay loves you and, you believe, Mouse, what’s stopping you from pursuing that possibility?”

Erin bit her lip and stood, pacing to the bookshelves along the wall of Dr. Charles’ office and picking up a knickknack to fiddle with.

“It just seems like an impossible thing to make happen. How would I even do that, you know?”

“By talking. You need to talk to them, explain what you want, and find out if it’s something they might want too. Since you have only an assumption right now that Jay loves Mouse in a romantic way, I’d say it would make the most sense to talk to him first, do you agree?”

The conversation continued like that for a while, Dr. Charles helping Erin figure out where to go, how to initiate the conversation with Jay and keep things calm. Later, they circled back round to the topic of Mouse’s sexuality.

“That’s the thing,” Erin said in response to Dr. Charles’ question. “I tried imagining that, Mouse and sex, but I just don’t want it. I was afraid I would, afraid I’d want something from him he can’t give me but it isn’t there.”

Dr. Charles smiled. In the end, Erin left with peace of mind about what she wanted, that she wasn’t crazy or a terrible person for wanting it, and a plan for how to maybe get it.

It was one of the increasingly rare nights when Mouse made no appearance at Jay’s apartment, choosing to spend some time alone and give them the night together. Erin and Jay made dinner and then went to the living room. Erin curled up on the couch, Jay beside her, and she gently took the remote from Jay’s hand when he went to turn on the TV.

“Erin?” Jay smiled at her curiously.

“Can we talk about something?”

“Sure.” Jay’s brows drew together slightly as he watched her. Erin fiddled anxiously with the remote, feeling the surge of nerves which had been growing since she decided to do this tonight.

“Okay, so um, let me preface this with this isn’t a jealousy thing or anything, and I need you to answer me honestly and I’ll explain after, okay?” Erin watched the apprehension growing on Jay’s face as she spoke, but he nodded carefully in response. “Right, okay, so,” Erin swallowed, “are you in love with Mouse?”

Jay reeled back slightly, looking like he’d had the wind knocked out of him.

“Erin,” he said, voice strained, looking at her imploringly, “I love _you_.”

“I know, Jay, I’m not doubting that I promise, just please, tell me honestly, do you love Mouse too?” She leaned forward, trying to insert into her eyes some of the comforting serenity Dr. Charles seemed to naturally possess. Jay held her gaze, panic and confusion and anxiety reflecting back at her, and he was silent for a long moment. Finally he swallowed and, as though it physically hurt him, whispered, “yes.” Erin sighed, relieved that she had been right, hope welling up that maybe Dr. Charles was right, maybe she could have this, maybe _they_ could have this.

“Okay.”

“But Erin I love you,” Jay started speaking again, lurching forward. “You have to know that Erin, I love you, I chose you-”

“Whoa, hey, Jay,” Erin said soothingly, cutting him off. “I know, it’s okay, I’m not mad or anything it’s just…” She trailed off to take a deep breath. “What if you didn’t have to choose?”

“I… What?”

“What if you didn’t have to choose?”

“I don’t understand.”

Restless energy thrummed beneath Erin’s skin and she pushed up off the couch to pace nervously in front of the couch.

“Okay, so, um, I love you, and you love me, and we’re… us, but you also love Mouse and, and Mouse loves you but he also has feelings for me, and um, I think I have feelings for him too, so what if you didn’t have to choose between us, what if you could have both, or we could all have both, together.” When she had planned this out with Dr. Charles she meant to be calmer, to explain things slowly and logically, but now that she had taken the leap the words were rushing out as though she had to get them all out before something terrible happened. Jay was looking on, utterly bewildered but she couldn’t stop. “And when you think about it, really, it wouldn’t be all that different from now cause Mouse is already over here all the time, it’s already kind of the three of us together, right?”

She stopped her pacing, catching her breath and looking at Jay who was watching her with parted lips, perched on the edge of the couch like he was about to get up and grab her by the shoulders. Silence hung in the air for a moment, and Erin was consumed by the race of her pulse and the sound of her own breathing as Jay blinked and Erin thought she could actually see his mind struggling to catch up with what she had said.

“Okay,” Jay said finally. “Okay, I have questions. So just, one thing at a time, okay?”

Erin nodded anxiously, fingers tangling together like she had seen Mouse’s do so many times and she wondered absently if his habits were rubbing off on her.

“Mouse loves me?”

“Yes.” Erin couldn’t help the way her eyebrows twitched and the tone of her voice that added an unspoken “ _obviously.”_

“And you know this for sure.”

“Yes. He told me. I mean, I already thought so and I asked him and he said yes.”

Jay blinked blankly and Erin bit her lip.

“You asked him? What just straight up asked him if he loved me?” There’s a hint of a smile in Jay’s voice, like he’s picturing Mouse’s reaction and finds it funny, and it’s endearing and incredibly comforting to Erin’s fraying nerves as she waits for this to play out.

“Ah, well, it just sort of… happened, and then I realized it was rude and said he didn’t have to answer or anything, but he told me anyway. Obviously. And he explained about being ace. It was the night after the whole Keyes thing.”

“Right. So you know he’s ace, that’s… yeah. That’s good. And you said- you said he has feelings for you?”

Erin cleared her throat, trying to decipher the emotion behind Jay’s deliberately neutral tone at this question.

“Yes. I don’t think he meant to tell me; he was angry about me breaking my promise and going after Yates alone and he said something about it being bad enough being in love with one reckless idiot and he didn’t know what he did to deserve, um, loving me too. And then he ran off.”

“Which is why you guys were being weird after that case,” Jay said, something of relief and a new clarity blooming in his eyes.

“Yeah.”

“And you have feelings for him too?” Here, Jay was cautious, but there was a genuine curiosity too.

“Um, yes? I’ve been thinking about it, and I was really confused but I talked to Dr. Charles, and he explained polyamory to me? And he helped me make sense of what I wanted and, and what to do about it, so now we’re here.” Erin swallowed and bit her lip, fingers twisting, and watched as Jay sat back, thinking.

“Right, okay….” Jay stood suddenly and Erin took an automatic step back to make space for him. “I’m going for a walk.”

“What?” Erin’s heart clenched in fear, mixing with bewilderment at this abrupt shift.

“I’ll come back,” Jay assured her, “but I need to think.”

_This will probably be quite a surprise for Jay; he might need to take time to process what you’re asking him and think about what he wants. Be patient._ Dr. Charles’ words from their discussion echoed in her mind, so she blew out a breath, trying to release some of the tension in her muscles, and nodded.

“Okay. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

Erin stood, statue-like as she watched Jay gather his jacket and keys, put on his shoes, and walk out the door. It wasn’t until the lock clicked shut behind him that Erin broke from her stillness, falling into the couch. She stared at her hands. _Holy shit. This is happening. What if he says no? What if I’m wrong and he doesn’t love Mouse like that? What if he’s angry that I do? What if—_ She stood abruptly, shaking the thoughts out of her mind, and making for the kitchen and the dirty dishes waiting to be washed from dinner.

She focussed her mind singularly on scrubbing the dishes clean, drying them, and putting them away, then cleaning out the microwave, wiping down the stove and the counters. Eventually she ran out of things to clean and wandered around the apartment, looking at the now familiar furniture, the full bookshelves with one section that contained the red box of Settlers of Catan, and Ticket to Ride, which Jay had added several months before. Her fingers lingered on the strings of Jay’s guitar, and felt the ghost of Mouse’s hands on hers, guiding her to the right notes, Mouse’s steady warmth as she jumped at Jay’s voice, the affectionate smirk on Jay’s face as he looked at them. _Play it for me?_ She remembered the haunting melody and Mouse’s voice, and the way he went so still when the music faded. She remembered the heat of a blush rising in her cheeks when he looked at her and wondered if that was the first moment she began to fall in love with him, or maybe it was when he pressed a warm coin into her hands, or when he stood with a gun to his head and she realized for the first time she might lose him, or maybe it was that first night when Mouse opened the door to Jay’s apartment and asked if she was coming in.

She plucked the guitar from its stand, sitting with it on the couch. Her boys – _could they be hers? Could she have that? –_ had continued to teach her bits at a time, and with clumsy fingers she began to strum the chords of the first song they taught her. _Silly sentimental song,_ she couldn’t help but think as Here Comes the Sun was born from her fingertips, _but maybe it will be good luck._

She was on the third time through the song, yet to make it through without fumbling a note as her fingers had to contort themselves along the neck when the lock clicked and Jay walked back in the door. Her head jerked up, the last interrupted note vibrating through the air, and she fixed her eyes on his face as he walked toward her.

“Okay.”

Erin felt hope explode in her chest, but she had to be sure.

“What?”

“Okay. Let’s not choose.”

It was a bit more complicated than that of course. Erin’s heart had soared, and she couldn’t help but grin widely at him, watching a hesitant grin bloom on Jay’s lips. She had put the guitar aside and wrapped her arms around him tightly, and he had pressed his lips to hers tenderly.

“I love you,” Erin whispered.

“I love you.”

Curled up together on the couch, they had talked and talked about what this meant and where to go from there and how they’d gotten here.

“Why did you and Mouse never…?” Erin had asked in one quiet moment, trailing off, unsure how to phrase the question exactly. Jay understood what she meant though.

"I don’t know when Mouse realized how he felt about me, but it wasn’t until the end of our last tour that I really began to realize it was more than just brotherhood, and then I was… confused. I’d always thought of myself as straight. And I knew that Mouse was ace, and I was afraid that I’d want more from him that he could give, that I would hurt him, and when we got back we were both a mess and there wasn’t space to deal with those complicated feelings. And when I started to put myself back together, he disappeared. When I got him back, things were still too messy to introduce that complication into it and I still thought I would want more than he could give and that wouldn’t be fair, and then I met you and I thought it was a moot point.”

Erin had snuggled in closer and considered his words, the familiar thought that had worried her, that she had pressed like a bruise until she had come to a conclusion.

“Do you really want sex from him though? And I don’t mean just because we have each other for that. Because I don’t. I thought I might. I was afraid, like you, but when I think about it – it’s not the same as when I think of you. I want him with us, I want a future with him, but I don’t want sex with him.”

“You’re right. I don’t want sex from him; that’s part of what I figured out when I was walking.”

Jay pressed a kiss to her lips, and the conversation moved on. Eventually, it got late, and they lay in the dark with their words and decisions swirling in the silence and Erin snuggled close to Jay’s side, closed her eyes, and dreamed of the future they would have.


	3. Chapter 3

Jay was embarrassed about his breakdown in the locker room. He shouldn’t be, he knew that; how many times had he said something similar to Mouse? But it was one thing to tell Mouse that there was no shame in letting Jay hold him while he broke, and another thing altogether to be the broken one. This wasn’t news. When they had gotten back from Afganistan after their last tour, Jay had been a mess – Mouse was too, Jay knew that, but at first Mouse seemed to be coping better – and he had done his best to turn his broken edges into knives rather than admit that he needed Mouse. But Mouse had refused to let Jay drive him away, until Jay had picked himself back up and shut the memories away, and then Mouse had vanished.

It had nearly broken him all over again, the sudden loss of the one person Jay could depend upon absolutely. He had been terrified and furious, and he had searched and searched and searched, but Mouse was too good at hiding, used to slipping through the night and covering his tracks and able to erase his digital footprints. Jay never gave up on finding him, but as he got used to the ache, he turned his focus to his career, until he made Detective, and had new resources and resourceful friends. Even so, Mouse slipped through his fingers like smoke every time he thought he was getting close, until the night the phone rang, waking him out of nightmares.

“Is this Jay Halstead?” The crisp voice had asked on the other end of the phone.

“Yes.” Jay had fumbled the bedside lamp on and sat up, and then came the words that made his heart stop.

“This is Chicago Med, you’re the emergency contact for a patient here, Greg Gurwitz.”

“Is he alright?” Jay had bit out, and once his heart started beating again his pulse was racing.

“He will be; he’s being treated for an accidental overdose.”

“I’m on my way.”

He had sat all night by Mouse’s bed. Mouse’s hand was cold and his body was too thin, and Jay had cried at what had become of his best friend, his brother in arms, the man he had fallen in love with somewhere in the middle of sand and bullets and blood. He had pushed that thought away; there was no place for it then, as he watched Mouse’s chest rise and fall in the dim hushed fluorescence of the hospital at night. He had fallen asleep in the chair, and in the morning the work of bringing his friend back from the edge had begun, leading them to the moment where Jay mourned another brother on the floor of the locker room with Mouse at his side.

He had been holding back his grief by the skin of his teeth until the case was done, soldiering on – and wasn’t that an apt phrase – through washing the blood off his hands, Al telling him Terry hadn’t made it, seeing Lissa and her telling him about Terry and the Police Academy, pressing his boot into the throat of the man who killed his friend, sitting in his dress uniform at another funeral with Mouse on one side Erin on the other. He had held his breath, held back the tears. After the funeral he had stripped out of the uniform and packed it away again, pulling on regular clothes that hung so much lighter. Erin sat perched on the edge of the bed, watching him with sad eyes and he couldn’t stand it. So he left for Molly’s throwing out some words about army kinship to get Erin to stay home. He got there before Mouse, and Ethan found him, Ethan who had been the doctor who worked on Terry in the ED before he went up for a surgery that wouldn’t save him, Ethan who was military, who had fought. So they got some beers, and Mouse joined them before long and they told army stories, battle stories – funeral stories – and Jay couldn’t stand it. So he left. He wasn’t ready to go back home and face Erin’s mournful kindness, and it was instinct that led him back to the district. And then Voight had said those words - “I’m lucky to have you in my unit” – and the dam broke.

He didn’t feel lucky; he felt cursed, one more brother’s body he had to carry around in his memory, one more person he couldn’t save, one more person he failed, and Voight was telling him he’s lucky to have him. He was adrift as he turned on the water at the sink, couldn’t bear to look himself in the eye in the mirror, trying to catch his breath, but then he was sinking to the floor, sobs breaking out of him, echoing in the room and he felt lost and broken and utterly alone, and suddenly Mouse was beside him, warm and comforting and holding him and he was so tired. Erin’s arrival and the return to the apartment was a blur, a haze of exhaustion and grief. The next clear thing was waking up to the tentative rays of sun through the blinds, and the bewildering realization that there were three bodies in the bed, that he was bracketed on either side by Mouse and Erin and in the moments before full consciousness rose, his only thought was that it was perfect.


	4. 4

He doesn’t consciously remember picking up the glass. The imperative to lash out at Erin and Mouse and their hovering had been building since the locker room as they refused to leave him alone and his skin was prickling with anger and Erin was too close and her eyes imploring and Mouse was steadfastly standing by her side watching Jay in his quiet understanding way and he couldn’t stand it and then he was yelling and Erin was pleading and then she was yelling back and Jay launched vicious words with relish, like throwing knives at them was the only way to get the blades out from under his own skin, and then there was a crystalline crash, light exploding off the shattered pieces as they dropped to the floor and Jay felt the impact like a blow in his chest. He was frozen for a long moment, Erin and Mouse both unmoving and watching him with wide eyes. Mouse blinked, and then Jay was stumbling back a step, seeing the glass hit the wall over and over, the glass that he had thrown; he had _thrown a glass_ only a few feet from two of the most important people in his life.

The image of his father rose in his mind, drunk and swaying and red with anger, empty beer bottle in his fist, his hoarse yelling following Jay as he walked determinedly away, and then the crash that made Jay whirl around, pulse racing mind full of the flames of a Molotov cocktail bursting to life, to find the skittering broken glass of the beer bottle on the walk only feet behind him.

A strangled moan crawled out of his throat and he fell into the couch and buried his head in his hands, feeling the couch dip as Erin and Mouse sat on either side of him, Erin’s hand on his back.

“Jay,” Mouse murmured. “You need to talk to someone.”

“A therapist if not us,” Erin added. The snort was a reflex, unable to contain his reaction to the irony of Erin telling him that, having made her escape from her sessions with Dr. Charles as soon as Voight had accepted that she was good and could be trusted. “We will if you will.”

At that his head jerked up to look at Erin in surprise and disbelief, but she met his gaze earnestly. He turned to Mouse, already expecting to find Mouse denying the words Erin had spoken for both of them – he knew how Mouse felt about therapists because it was just like how Jay felt about them – only Mouse looked him in the eye and nodded, and Jay stared at him. He thought of Mouse, beside him in the dark trading nightmares, Mouse struggling to breathe as his own body choked him, Mouse breaking their unwritten rules after the murder of Brian Johnson’s boy, Mouse bringing their nightmares into the daytime with Atwater just out of hearing range and Jay shutting down and shutting Mouse out. Jay stared at him and traced the shadows beneath his eyes that had lightened but never gone away, that spoke of a constant state of too little sleep, the memories lingering in the blue of his eyes, so utterly familiar. He thought of Mouse, lying in a hospital bed and Jay sitting next to him in the dark, and he thought of an Erin he didn’t recognize in shades and a scowl, _are you done talking?_

Which was how he had ended up sitting in an armchair waiting for Dr. Emily Garner.

“Jay Halstead?” Jay looked up to find a tall brunette woman who couldn’t be much older than him standing a few feet away. Jay stood, and the woman smiled and held out a hand, which Jay took. “Dr. Emily Garner. Come on in.” She shook his hand firmly, then turned and led him into an office that looked more like a small lounge with its couch and armchairs, a full bookshelf lining one wall, a desk tucked into a corner and light streaming in from the wall of windows. Dr, Garner folded herself into one of the armchairs, and Jay followed, sitting uncertainly on the couch opposite her and glancing around the room, avoiding Dr. Garner’s keen gaze.

“Have you ever been to a therapy session before, Jay?”

His eyes found hers automatically, then flicked away again.

“No.”

“Alright, well everything we talk about is confidential unless I believe you are an imminent threat to yourself or others. This is a safe space for you to talk about anything without judgement. My job is to listen, to help you work through your thoughts, confront trauma, and develop healthy coping strategies. Okay?”

“Got it.” Jay shifted, hands clasped in his lap.

“So, I understand from Dr. Charles that you’re ex-military, and now you’re a Detective with the CPD, is that right?”

“Yes, 75th Ranger Regiment, 3rd Battalion. Two tours in Afghanistan.”

“Rangers, that’s impressive. I know the training is hardcore. What was that like?”

Jay shifted uncomfortably. Dr. Garner’s voice was carefully casual, a tone Jay had heard used by cops and lawyers for years to try and wheedle information out of people without them realizing they were being interrogated or, in the case of lawyers, led into a trap. And wasn’t that exactly like the job of a therapist? To get people to talk about things they didn’t want to talk about? He shouldn’t be surprised to recognize the interrogator in her. He remembered the hours spilling onto hours of being trained how to resist interrogation if he was captured, remembered when the training turned into—

“Tiring,” he said, turning away sharply as though he could look away from his own thoughts so easily.

“Yes, I imagine it was,” Dr. Garner said gently, and Jay had the horrible sensation that he had said more than he’d meant to with that one word, and that she had understood too much. “Can you tell me what’s brought you in now?”

A flash of Terry’s blood on his hands, Terry with blood on his lips, _not like this brother_.

“That was the deal.”

“The deal?” Dr. Garner prodded.

“With Erin and Mouse,” Jay added shortly. “They go if I go.”

Jay expected Dr. Garner to say something, but she didn’t. The silence stretched on and Jay continued staring at the wall until he couldn’t help but look at her. She was just watching him, studying him shamelessly, but when he met her eyes she leaned forward slightly.

“You don’t want to be here, do you Jay?”

He considered lying, as though she really was an interrogator he needed to trick, as though there was something to be gained from it, or maybe simply because he was stubborn and annoyed and didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of telling her the truth.

“No.”

“So why are you?”

Jay stared.

“That was the deal.”

Dr. Garner studied him a moment longer.

“I only spoke briefly with Erin when she was setting up the appointments, and I haven’t met Mouse yet, but I can’t imagine this was quite what they had in mind when they made this deal. Therapy takes work, Jay. It’s hard, and you have to be willing to put in the effort. If you don’t want to be here, to talk to me and work with me, you won’t get anything out of this. It’s noble of you, to do something you don’t want to do to get the people you care about the help that they need, but they’re clearly trying to do the same for you. If you aren’t going to really fulfill your end of the bargain, how can you expect them to do the same?”

Her words struck Jay sourly, an uncomfortable truth he’d been trying to avoid since he gave in to Erin and Mouse’s negotiating. Because it had been part of the deal that they needed to take it seriously, that they had to actually talk and make an effort. Which was all well and good in the abstract, and when applied to Mouse and Erin, but for himself… He felt the rise of a lump in his throat and grit his teeth. His emotions had been far too close to the surface the last week, and he hated the burn in his eyes that warned of coming tears. There were times and places for tears, and this wasn’t one of them. Besides, what was he even crying about? He didn’t know, and he glared at the floor trying to force his tear ducts to cooperate. He’d cried his tears for Terry. That was that.

The first tear slipped down his cheek and he clenched his jaw, made tight fists of his hands hidden in his lap, glared at the floor. He was supposed to have better control than this. The weight of another person in the room, a stranger witnessing his failure, itched on his skin, only made the burn in his eyes worse as more traitorous tears trailed down his cheeks.

“Jay,” Dr. Garner said quietly, and Jay’s fists tightened, blunt nails digging into the skin of his palms. “Do you need a moment alone?”

Caught between his desperation to be alone and the need not to show any more weakness by asking this of her, Jay floundered for a moment, before stiffly dipping his head. He heard the rustle as Dr. Garner stood, the _click-click_ of her heels across the floor, the _snick_ of the door opening, swishing slightly, then the answering _snick_ as it closed. Breath whooshed out of him as he hunched forward, releasing clenched fists to hold his head in his hand, breath catching on the inhale, breaking into a sob.

He allowed himself a moment of crying before pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, shoving the maelstrom of messy unidentified emotions back. He wiped his eyes, taking deep huffing breaths, standing and pacing the room. He wanted to leave, to bolt and never come back. This was his chance. She wasn’t in the room, he wouldn’t have to explain to anyone, he could just leave. But then he imagined the looks of disappointment he’d see on Erin and Mouse’s faces, imagined the argument they might have as they tried to goad him into going back, imagined them resignedly cancelling their own appointments… So he swallowed hard, wiped his eyes again, shook out his hands, took several deep breaths, and then poked his head out the door to find Dr. Garner sitting patiently in one of the chairs outside the room and he motioned her back inside. She sat primly back into her armchair and Jay back onto the couch, feeling a wave of déjà vu as he settled nervously, but this time that nervousness was joined by the beginnings of a resigned determination.

“So how do we do this?” he asked roughly. Dr. Garner smiled.

“We just talk, Jay.”


	5. 5

“Can you tell me what brought you here?” Dr. Garner had said, once the first session had properly begun. “Not the very beginning, but was there a specific incident that made Mouse and Erin push for you to come see me?” Jay clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, saw Terry’s bloodstained lips, took a deep breath.

“There was a shooting. I wasn’t— I was working security, escorting a lot of cash, and they trapped the truck and we were exchanging fire, and,” he swallowed thickly, “Terry, my- my friend, he got hit.” He paused, blowing out a long breath, leg bouncing, jittery. “I got him to cover, tried to stop the bleeding… he was still alive when they took him away.”

He expected Dr. Garner to say something, was ready for the knife of her apology (sometimes he understood this trigger of Mouse’s all too well, but it wasn’t panic for him, only anger, only grief), her ‘sympathy,’ her ‘condolences,’ but as he grappled with the remembered rage that had him grabbing roughly at the ex-DEA agent that day, she was silent. The anger bubbled inside him, the festering wound of Terry’s blood on his hands, the ultrasound of a baby that would never know its father, the letter from the police academy that sat in his nightstand, his boot pressing against a murderer’s throat burning in his chest.

“He survived a goddamn war!” The words burst out of him, louder than he meant, scraping roughly out of his throat. His eyes burned, but the tears didn’t come. He clenched his fists and glared at the floor and waited because he couldn’t speak anymore, not just then. The silence stretched on until it began to prick at Jay’s skin, and then Dr. Garner spoke.

“I imagine that was very difficult for you, to lose another friend.” Jay closed his eyes, and nodded, throat tight. “I imagine it also stirred up some memories.” Jay laughed humourlessly at that.

“That’s what Mouse said.” He opened his eyes to look at her, watched her lips twitch up into a faint, encouraging smile.

“Sounds like a smart guy.”

“Yeah. Yeah, he is.”

His words hung in the air for a moment, and Jay knew that he had just confirmed what she and Mouse had said about memories, if not in so many words. Bombs and gunfire and screams flickered in the back of his mind as he waited with dread for her to ask, to drag the war into the room with them. The machine-gun staccato of his heart screamed ‘I’m not ready, not yet, not yet, don’t ask me that,’ and the moment before Dr. Garner opened her mouth stretched out, and then snapped shut.

“What else can you tell me about the shooting?”

A reprieve—sort of. He tapped his fingers against the blue of his jeans, didn’t look at her while he spoke.

“His wife was – is – pregnant. They’d just gotten the ultrasound, showed it to me that morning. And… and he’d gotten into the police academy. Lissa said, said he looked up to me.” He opened his mouth again, then shut it, falling silent.

“Alright,” Dr. Garner said, and he could hear her shifting slightly in her chair. “You’ve given me some facts; what do they mean to you?”

Jay ducked his head, thinking of Terry’s acceptance letter in his nightstand drawer and its heavy weight in his chest and the fuzzy black and white image of a child that would grow up without a father and words he already knew he shouldn’t say tumbled from his lips.

“It should have been me.”

“Explain that to me.”

“What?” Jay’s head came up, brows furrowing—whatever words he was expecting, these weren’t them.

“You say it should have been you. Tell me why.”

Jay opened his mouth, closed it again, stared at her. She sat patiently, watching him neutrally and it became clear that she wouldn’t speak until Jay answered the question.

“He… He’d only just gotten his life on track, he had a family, he was gonna be police, he had his whole life to live still—”

“And you didn’t fight to get your life on track?” Dr. Garner interrupts gently. “Do you not have a family? Mouse and Erin at the least. You are a well-respected Detective in the CPD, you also have your whole life ahead of you. What makes Terry’s life worth more than yours? The value of one life over another… it’s not an equation that ever has a right answer, Jay.”

It’s utterly strange to Jay, to hear someone speak so frankly about this. Usually, people just say “don’t say things like that,” as though not speaking it aloud would make the feeling any less true, as though silence was a solution to the broken pieces inside… and what irony, Jay realized, what irony that he could see that so clearly in that moment when he has spent a lifetime choosing silence when it matters. He thought of the words that slipped from Mouse’s lips when he fired a gun for the first time in years. He thought of the way Mouse began to break silences, little desperate rebellions against their quiet pact that left room for painful words only in the shadows of the night. He should have said that. He should have offered Dr. Garner the things that flitted across his mind.

Instead he said, “Sometimes it does.”

Dr. Garner tilted her head, studied him. “Does it?”

Jay thought her words should make him feel small, scolded like a naughty child, but they didn’t. Her voice was too kind, too neutral, too curious and sincere.

“Yes. There’s a code for police. Priority of life. Victims and innocent bystanders are top priority, then emergency workers and officers, then offenders.”

“Of course.” Dr. Garner nodded. “That determines priority for protection in tactical situations. It gives police guidelines, a structure to help them make decisions. But does it really determine the worth of someone’s life? Officers aren’t lower in the priority of life line because their lives are worth less. They’re lower because they’ve knowingly and willingly accepted the risk that comes with their jobs, where victims and bystanders haven’t. And offenders have accepted the risk that comes with breaking the law. But would you ever say that Erin or Mouse’s lives are worth less than a victim’s?”

“Mouse isn’t an officer,” Jay said distantly, reflexively. Dr. Garner watched him with soft eyes, a curve to her lips that was kind, understanding, almost, maybe, amused.

“A technicality,” she said, then dropped back into expectant silence. Jay thought of Erin’s smile, Mouse’s steady gaze, and he knew the answer, knew it deeply and immediately, but still he felt an itching irritation, a sense that he had been outmaneuvered.

“No,” he said finally. “No, they’re not worth less.” Then, softer, quieter, almost without permission, he added, “They could never be worth less.”

Dr. Garner leaned forward ever so slightly, and Jay felt in some way that it was the springing of a trap even as he knew that this woman was not his enemy.

“And you? Are you worth less?”

He wanted to say yes. He wanted to tell her that there would always be lives worth more than his, worth more than his broken and dirtied spirit. There would always be cleaner hands and kinder hearts that deserve in ways he doesn’t. But she has strung his logic along, and he knew that if he said yes she would bring it back to Mouse and Erin, knew that if he said yes then he was somehow saying their lives were worth less. So he gritted his teeth and swallowed hard.

“No.” He almost meant it.

Dr. Garner leaned back, subtle satisfaction and a knowing glint in her eyes.

“I want you to say it to yourself—”

Jay grimaced reflexively and she chuckled ever so slightly.

“This is your homework. When you feel like that, like it should have been you, or like your life is worth less, I want you to say to yourself, out loud, ‘I deserve to live.’ I want you to say it until you believe it.”

_I deserve to live._ The words rang sourly in Jay’s head, bouncing off the blood of brothers he left behind in the sand, off the memory of the ultrasound, of the funerals and the weeping of the families, and it felt impossible that Jay could ever really believe that he deserves it more than the ghosts for whom he grieves. But he thought of Erin and Mouse, and Jay nodded anyway.

_I deserve to live._


	6. 6

“I deserve to live. I deserve to live. I deserve to live…” Jay muttered the words, barely aloud, all the way home. He didn’t feel better. He didn’t believe them. Saying them only made him angry. He stopped, then started again when Mouse and Erin’s faces flashed into his head, when Dr. Garner’s logic bit at his mind. If he stopped saying it, was he agreeing Mouse and Erin’s lives were worth less? Somehow he felt like he was.

So with hands growing tighter, knuckles whiter, around the steering wheel, he kept repeating the mantra until he pulled into the parking lot of his apartment building. It played on a loop, bitter-tasting, in his mind as he walked through the building, as the elevator rose, as he slid his key into the lock, registering a moment too late the spicy smell and the sound of laughter slipping around the door’s edges.

“Jay! Come taste this!” Erin’s voice bounced out of the kitchen the moment he stepped inside.

_I deserve to live, I deserve to live, I deserve to live…_

He slipped off his shoes, dropped his keys into their bowl, and stepped resignedly toward the kitchen. He was dreading the looks on their faces, their questions. He wanted to go to bed and lay in the dark and turn off his brain. But there was golden light beckoning him to their warmth.

He stepped through the doorway. Erin, her hair pulled back in a chaotic knot, with pieces falling out, looked up and smiled, soft and easy and like there was nothing unusual at all, and Jay’s heart clenched and released. Mouse glanced up and waved a kitchen knife in a lazy hello then turned back to the chicken he was carefully dicing.

“Here.” Erin dipped a spoon into a skillet with a simmering orange-y sauce— _sienna,_ a distant memory of his mother’s voice said, edged with smugness from behind the dictionary, well-worn from Boggle nights—and carefully lifted it to his lips. Automatically, he dipped his head, and the rich taste of cream and spices coated his tongue. It almost burned away the bitter taste of the mantra in his mouth. He offered her a smile, hoping it was enough. He felt as though the only words he had left were the ones Dr. Garner foisted upon him. Erin grinned. “Good?”

He nodded and her grin grew wider.

Behind her, Mouse put down the knife and picked up the cutting board, carefully sliding the chicken pieces into the skillet. He glanced over, letting only a flicker of worry show in his eyes before he smiled.

“There’s a recipe for pakoras over there,” he said, nodding at the table where a cauliflower, a few potatoes, an onion, and some other scattered ingredients rested beside a piece of paper. “You can get started on that if you want.”

Jay nodded again, smiling back, and turned to the table, focussing all his attention on the unfamiliar instructions of the recipe.

If Mouse and Erin traded worried glances, or resigned grimaces, Jay didn’t see them. He narrowed his world to slicing the cauliflower into perfectly sized florets, and making even little cubes of potato, to mixing perfectly measured flour and spices. He was nothing but careful hands and the smell of the batter.

_I deserve to live, I deserve to live…_ The words were still bitter.

The food was not. After the careful cooking was done, it was warm and thick and rich on his heavy tongue. Fresh baked naan was sweet and soft, and the pakoras born of his hands were steaming and crisp, and the chicken was moist and permeated with perfect spice. It was the kind of meal that… well, the kind of meal that makes him feel alive.

And still, Mouse and Erin didn’t ask. They made quiet easy conversation and Jay’s silence didn’t seem like a void. He was not excluded, but nor did they let empty spaces yawn open in the shape of his voice. His tongue was still heavy, but couldn’t find the taste of bitter words beyond the spices.

“I deserve to live,” he whispered to his reflection that night before bed. Erin was waiting for him under the covers. Mouse was reading in the next room by the soft lamplight, which just barely spilled into the bedroom. He whispered the words, and they were the closest they had been to true all day.

He went back to Dr. Garner. And again, and again. It never got easier. But against all odds, he’s… grateful? He never realized how many poisonous words were tangled up and oozing inside of himself until Dr. Garner started pulling them from his mouth. They don’t come easy. But they do come, and she picks them apart with ruthless logic, with the kind of kindness that is sharp. And he breathes just a little bit easier.

He saw it in Mouse too, and in Erin, and he regretted that he still couldn’t pour the words out to them that spilled from his lips in Dr. Garner’s office. They’re working on that. Someday, he’ll be able to give Mouse what he needs, be the other half of impossible conversations in more than moonlit fragments. Someday they will let Erin see the scars and tell her the nightmares that aren’t just nightmares.

And there was something else that floated just out of reach. Something in the way that Dr. Garner studied him sometimes when he talks about Erin and Mouse. Something about watching the two most important people in his life laughing together. Something about the way Erin stared at Mouse sometimes when Mouse wasn’t looking. Something… And then it was gone.

But Erin had been on edge the past few days, since her last appointment with Dr. Charles, and Jay worried. It was subtle, but there. The way she bit her lip as though to stop herself from speaking. The way her eyes flicked so quickly between him and Mouse. Sometimes he thought she was holding him more tightly, as through afraid he would disappear.

Mouse wasn’t there that night, and Erin had been biting her lip more, and fidgeting with the coin Mouse gave her, tapping her fingers, and Jay knew something was coming. He just didn’t know what, and he was afraid.

He picked up the remote, and Erin’s hand, soft but calloused, slipped it from his grasp and his heart skipped a beat. He forced himself to smile.

“Erin?”

She bit her lip, then spoke.

The cold air was a relief, brushing across his cheeks and into his lungs when he stepped outside, Erin’s words ringing in his ears. _What if you didn’t have to choose?_ The thought swirled around and around, a hurricane, rearranging everything into chaos. An option he could never have considered. There was a part of him, the part that sounded like his father, like the church he didn’t go to anymore, that recoiled. That had always recoiled, full of fear and confusion, when he let himself consider what he felt for Mouse. There was a much larger part of him that could already see it. It was the thing that had been teasing him, floating just out of reach. Erin had plucked it out of the ether and handed it to him.

_What if you didn’t have to choose?_

Was that what he wanted? He thought of all those times, watching Erin with Mouse, sitting with their warmth on either side, their laughter filling up his apartment. He thought of the morning after that terrible day and how he’d tried to forget how perfect it was to wake to them both there. He thought of what it might be like, to press a kiss to Mouse’s lips, to see Erin do the same. And it was everything he didn’t know he’d wanted, everything he thought he couldn’t have.

_What if you didn’t have to choose?_

So he doesn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back! It's been a while...   
> You know the deal - I try not to make you wait too long, but I can never guarantee quick updates.


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